Things to do in Derry/Londonderry
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Museum of Free Derry
The Museum of Free Derry, just off Rossville St, chronicles the history of the Bogside, the civil rights movement and the events of Bloody Sunday through photographs, newspaper reports, film clips and the accounts of first-hand witnesses, including some of the original photographs which inspired the murals of the People's Gallery.
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Bloody Sunday Memorial
A simple granite obelisk that commemorates the 14 civilians who were shot dead by the British Army on 30 January 1972. Bloody Sunday tragically echoed Dublin's Bloody Sunday of November 1920. Derry's Bloody Sunday was a turning point in the history of the Troubles. On Sunday 30 January 1972, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association organised a peaceful march through Derry in protest against internment without trial, which had been introduced by the British government the previous year.
Some 15,000 people marched from Creggan through the Bogside towards the Guildhall, but were stopped by British Army barricades at the junction of William and Rossville Sts. The main…
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City Tours
Runs one-hour Historic Derry walking tours starting from Carlisle Stores at 10:00, noon and 14:00 year-round and costing £4/£2 per adult/child. There are also tours of the Bogside and of Derry's murals.
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Sandwich Co
Sandwich Co sells white bread, brown bread, baguettes, panini, ciabatta - this place offers good-value, choose-your-own sandwiches and salads. Also at 61 Strand Road.
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People's Gallery Murals
The 12 murals that decorate the gable ends of houses along Rossville St, near Free Derry Corner, are popularly referred to as the People's Gallery. They are the work of Tom Kelly, Will Kelly and Kevin Hasson, known as 'the Bogside Artists'. The three men have spent most of their lives in the Bogside, and lived through the worst of the Troubles.
Their murals, mostly painted between 1997 and 2001, commemorate key events in the Troubles, including the Battle of the Bogside, Bloody Sunday, Operation Motorman (the British Army's operation to retake IRA-controlled no-go areas in Derry and Belfast in July 1972) and the 1981 hunger strike. The most powerful images are those…
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St Columb's Cathedral
Built between 1628 and 1633 from the same grey-green schist as the city walls, St Columb's Cathedral was the first post-Reformation church to be built in Britain and Ireland, and is Derry's oldest surviving building.
In the porch (under the spire, by the St Columb's Court entrance) you can see the original foundation stone of 1633 that records the cathedral's completion, inscribed: If stones could speake/Then London's prayse/Should sounde who/Built this church and/Cittie from the grounde.
The smaller stone inset, inscribed 'In Templo Verus Deus Est Vereo Colendus' (The True God is in His Temple and is to be truly worshipped), comes from the original church built here in…
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Free Derry Corner
The Bogside district, to the west of the walled city, developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a working-class, predominantly Catholic, residential area. By the 1960s, its serried ranks of small, terraced houses had become an overcrowded ghetto of poverty and unemployment, a focus for the emerging civil rights movement and a hotbed of nationalist discontent.
In August 1969 the three-day 'Battle of the Bogside' - a running street battle between local youths and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) - prompted the UK government to send British troops into Northern Ireland. The residents of the Bogside and neighbouring Brandywell districts - 33,000 of them - declared…
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City Walls
Derry's walled city is Ireland's earliest example of town planning. It is thought to have been modelled on the French Renaissance town of Vitry-le-François, designed in 1545 by Italian engineer Hieronimo Marino; both are based on the grid plan of a Roman military camp, with two main streets at right angles to each other, and four city gates, one at the end of each street.
Completed in 1619, Derry's city walls are about 8m high and 9m thick, with a circumference of about 1.5km, and are the only city walls in Ireland to survive almost intact. The four original gates (Shipquay, Ferryquay, Bishop's and Butcher's) were rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries, when three new…
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Tower Museum
Just inside the Magazine Gate is the award-winning Tower Museum , housed in a replica 16th-century tower house. Head straight to the fifth floor for a view from the top of the tower, then work your way down through the excellent Armada Shipwreck exhibition, which tells the story of La Trinidad Valenciera - a ship of the Spanish Armada which was wrecked at Kinnagoe Bay in Donegal in 1588.
It was discovered by the City of Derry Sub-Aqua Club in 1971 and excavated by marine archaeologists. On display are bronze guns, pewter tableware and personal items - a wooden comb, an olive jar, a shoe sole - recovered from the site, including a 2.5-tonne siege gun bearing the arms of…
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Guildhall
Standing just outside the city walls opposite the Tower Museum, the neo-Gothic Guildhall was originally built in 1890, then rebuilt after a fire in 1908. As the seat of the old Londonderry Corporation, which institutionalised the policy of discriminating against Catholics over housing and jobs, it incurred the wrath of nationalists and was bombed twice by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1972.
From 2000 to 2005 it was the seat of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry (www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk), headed by Lord Saville, which sat from March 2000 till December 2004. The inquiry heard from 900 witnesses, received 2500 witness statements, and allegedly cost the British taxpayer…
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Workhouse Museum
Across the river from the walled city lies the largely Protestant Waterside district. At the height of the Troubles, many Protestants living in and around the Bogside moved across the river to escape the worst of the violence. Here you'll find the Workhouse Museum housed in Derry's original 1840-1946 workhouse.
Daily life at the workhouse for the 800 inmates was designed to encourage them to leave as soon as possible, alive or dead. One of the exhibits is the grisly horse-drawn hearse used to carry away the corpses.
Other displays cover the Potato Famine, while the excellent Atlantic Memorial exhibition tells the story of the WWII Battle of the Atlantic and the major role…
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Long Tower Church
Outside the city walls to the southwest is Long Tower Church, Derry's first post-Reformation Catholic church. Built in 1784 in neo-Renaissance style, it stands on the site of the medieval Teampall Mór (Great Church), built in 1164, whose stones were used to help build the city walls in 1609. Long Tower was built with the support of the Anglican bishop of the time, Frederick Augustus Harvey, who presented the capitals for the four Corinthian columns framing the ornate high altar.
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Brown's Restaurant
From the outside Brown's may not have the most promising location, over the river in Waterside, but step inside and you're in a little art deco enclave of brandy-coloured banquettes and ornate metal light fittings, with the odd Rothko print adorning the walls. The ever-changing menu is a gastronome's delight, making creative use of fresh local produce in dishes such as wood pigeon wrapped in pastry, with creamed shallots, cranberries and red wine sauce.
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Sandino's Café-Bar
From the posters of Ché to the Free Palestine flag to the Fairtrade coffee, this relaxed café-bar exudes a liberal, left-wing vibe. There are live bands on Friday at 21:30, and occasionally midweek, and DJ sessions on Saturdays. On Sundays there's a traditional Irish music session at 15:00, and live jazz/soul or DJs from 21:30, plus regular theme nights, fundraising nights and political events. Check the website for details.
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St Eugene's Cathedral
The Roman Catholic St Eugene's Cathedral was begun in 1851 as a response to the end of the Great Famine, and dedicated to St Eugene in 1873 by Bishop Kelly; the handsome east window (1891) is a memorial to the bishop. The bells of St Eugene's still ring every night at 21:00 as a reminder of the Penal Laws (in force from 1691 until the early 19th century) which forbade Catholics to attend mass and subjected them to a 21:00 curfew.
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Mange 2
Tea-lights flickering in pierced pottery bowls lend a bit of atmosphere to this Georgian-style dining room, an elegant venue for a bit of a splurge. The French fusion menu includes lots of Irish ingredients - try plump Strangford Lough mussels á la Basquaise (in a thick broth of roasted red pepper, garlic, wine and cream) - and a handful of good vegetarian dishes, and there's an 'early bird' three-course dinner.
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Mason's Bar
The city that spawned the Undertones is still turning out raw, rumbustious live music and Mason's Friday night sessions, kicking off at 18:00, are the place to catch the latest offerings from local talent. There are three or four acts each week, as well as open-mic sessions on Monday and occasional live bands on Saturdays at 22:00; check out what's on at www.myspace.com/masons629.
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Hands Across the Divide
As you enter the city across Craigavon Bridge, the first thing you see is the Hands Across the Divide monument. This striking bronze sculpture of two men reaching out to each other symbolises the spirit of reconciliation and hope for the future; it was unveiled in 1992, 20 years after Bloody Sunday.
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Harbour Museum
The small, old-fashioned Harbour Museum, with models of ships, a replica of a currach - an early sailing boat of the type that carried St Colmcille to Iona - and the bosomy figurehead of the Minnehaha, is housed in the old Harbour Commissioner's Building next to the Guildhall.
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Bogside Artists Studio
The Bogside Artists Studio is tucked behind the Bogside Inn; tours are available for groups if booked in advance. It is the studio of Tom Kelly, Will Kelly and Kevin Hasson, known as 'The Bogside Artists', famous as the creators of the murals that make up the People's Gallery.
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Foyle Cruise Line
Operates daily cruises on the Foyle estuary. Trips to Culmore Bay (1¼ hours) cost £6/£4.50 per adult/child and depart at 14:00; four-hour evening cruises to Greencastle with bar and entertainment cost £12/£8 per adult/child, and depart at 20:00.
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Badgers Bar
A fine polished-brass and stained-glass Victorian pub crammed with wood-panelled nooks and crannies, Badgers overflows at lunchtime with shoppers enjoying quality pub grub, and offers a quiet haven in the evenings when it attracts a crowd of more mature drinkers.
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Encore Brasserie
Set in the lobby of the city's main cultural venue, the Encore is a stylish little place with friendly, efficient service and a crowd-pleasing menu of perennial favourites from home-made lasagne to slow-braised lamb shanks served with honey-glazed carrots.
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Peadar O'Donnell's
A backpackers' favourite, Peadar's goes for traditional music sessions every night and often on weekend afternoons as well. It's done up as a typical Irish pub-cum-grocer down to shelves of grocery items, with a pig's head and hams hanging off the ceiling.
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Fitzroy's
Informal Fitzroy's does café-style, burger-and-chips lunches till 17:30, and then bistro-style dinners, including Moroccan-style lamb kebab, baked cod with leek risotto, and Thai vegetable stir-fry. There's a second entrance on Carlisle Rd.
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